The Wise Men

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Please improve this article if you can. (November 2007)

N.B.These wise man are not the ones from the BIble

These six friends -- two lawyers, two bankers, two diplomats -- came together when Harry Truman became President of the United States in 1945 and helped create a bipartisan foreign policy based on the resistance of the expansion of Soviet power. They were exemplars of the American foreign policy establishment, and as such tended to be practical, realistic, and non-ideological. They had generally known each other since their days at prep school or college, and on Wall Street. After they had retired, they and a group of like-minded establishment elders were dubbed The Wise Men and summoned back by President Lyndon Johnson. At first they supported the Vietnam War, but in a pivotal meeting in March 1968 they expressed the conviction that the war could not be won and American troops should be withdrawn.

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[edit] Vietnam war era

[edit] First meeting

On November 1st and 2nd 1967 President Johnson brought together: Dean Acheson, George Ball, General Omar Bradley, McGeorge Bundy, Clark Clifford, Arthur Dean, Douglas Dillon, Justice Abe Fortas, Averill Harriman, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Robert Murphy and General Maxwell Taylor. They were briefed by General Wheeler and George Carver on Vietnam. Carver and Wheeler reported that great progress was being made in Vietnam. As a group they were unanimous in opposing the United States departure from Vietnam. They did however recognize that that battlefield casualties were eroding support and recommend that Gen. William Westmoreland and Bunker should emphasize the idea that the "light at the end of the tunnel" was in sight. Bundy reported to the President that "public discontent with the war is now wide and deep" but that Johnson should "stay the course".

[edit] Second meeting

On March 25 1968 the same group that had met in November with the addition of General Matthew Ridgway and Cyrus Vance They were briefed by The State Department, the CIA and the Department of Defense on William Westmoreland request for additional troops for Vietnam in the wake of the Tet Offensive. With the exception of Robert Murphy, General Taylor and Abe Fortas the group's recommendations,, summed up by Dean Acheson were "we can no longer do the job we set out to do in the time we have left and we must begin to take steps to disengage" (The Tet Offensive David F. Schmitz)

[edit] Origins and present-day "wise men"

The phenomenon of the "wise man" - an individual who divides his time between business, legal and/or corporate life and government service - is almost uniquely American. While there have been similar instances in other democracies, notably Lord Beaverbrook in the United Kingdom in the 1940s, these tend to be isolated examples. Its prevalence in the United States is probably a function in part of the structure of the U.S. government, whereby the holders of important executive offices are not required, and in fact are constitutionally forbidden from being elected members of Congress. It also reflects the central place of commerce in the life of the American republic.

Some have called John Jay the first "wise man." In the modern sense, however, Elihu Root has a better claim to the title. Edward M. House, who worked with Woodrow Wilson, was one of the most powerful "wise men" of all.

While the original "wise men" fell out of favor after the Vietnam War, the concept of the public/private man has not, though it has undergone some significant changes. Dramatically tightened government ethics and disclosure rules now make such once-seamless transitions between public and private life vastly more complex and difficult. The reorientation of the American economy toward the Sun Belt also means that such men now tend to be drawn from places other than New York. Former Secretaries of State George Schultz of California and James A. Baker of Texas, as well as Robert Strauss, also of Texas, are modern-day examples of "wise men." The "club" of wise men has even been integrated to some extent, with Vernon Jordan serving as a wise man-type counsellor to former President Bill Clinton.

[edit] References

  • Isaacson, Walter & Thomas, Evan (1986). The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made: Acheson, Bohlen, Harriman, Kennan, Lovett, and McCloy. Simon & Schuster, New York. ISBN 0-68-483771-4

[edit] Links